Looking for advice against Samus

[Tyril132]

Hi, Smashboards.

I picked up as my main in Smash 3DS and am looking for some advice against . To give you a rough idea of my skill level, my online win rate in For Glory is settling in at ~65%. My friend mains her and we are extremely close in skill level; over a 20 game set, we'll typically go dead even on stocks and wins.

The two biggest issues I'm having against him are:

1. Figuring out how to safely approach through his projectiles, and
   
2. Figuring out how to get back onto the stage and avoid getting juggled.

I'm working on getting better at trying to pressure him into rolling or grabbing (both slow and easily punishable) but have a hard time actually closing the distance. On the ground, he'll chain projectiles to try and bait a dodge or block for a grab or neutral-B, and in the air, his U-Smash seems to out-range my N-Air and F-Air, so it seems like I'm just getting set up to get juggled.

It seems that once I'm up in the air, I'm pretty much boned. I've tried experimenting with dodging or using DI to get out of his U-Smash > U-Air > U-Special combo, but it only seems to work at higher %, giving him a ton of free damage if he lands the opening hit. I try to mix up my return options, but he's getting good at predicting them and countering with a charged Neutral-B. Right now, the only way I've found to reliably deal with this is to return with my U-Special and curve it around the projectile's trajectory.

Any advice or insight would be awesome.

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

Samus is a girl @EnGarde you may wanna read this too.

Anyways, the first thing I do against Samus is I try to either pressure them with Aura Sphere or I try closing the distance, so she can't fully charge her Charge Shot safely.

Her missiles are fairly slow, so you can Double Team them on reaction as long as you don't overcommit on something else. You can even crawl under a Super Missile.

The least risky way to recover is to aim to sweet spot the ledge from below it, so that you don't get hit by anything. You can also do cling mind games with omega pillared stages.

As with all other characters you can punish her landing lag at higher percents with Force Palm.

Try mixing your landings up with Aura Sphere BReversals.

I would not recommend trying to challenge her Screw Attack or UAir with our DAir unless you are sure you are perfectly spaced.

Speaking of her Screw Attack I noticed in my matches with @EnGarde (you can see them in the YouTube thread) you can DI out of it to the left or right during the very first few beginning hits of it. If you are stuck in it hold down to vector DI to make sure you survive longer.

Try avoid landing with FAir unless if you are sure you can hit with it. It is pretty punishable.

Try to have Aura Sphere charged as much as you can. That way you can punish or threaten to punish whiffed air attacks. Also, you'll be able to out prioritize her missiles at higher percents. Don't forget you can not only cancel her missile, but possibly hit her with a mid-high percent Force Palm.

 

[Tyril132]

Samus is a girl @EnGarde you may wanna read this too.

Oh, I'm aware. I'm a huge Metroid series fan. I was using "he" to refer to my friend and "she" for , but I can see how it might have been confusing.

Thanks for the helpful feedback. It sounds like I have a lot of work cut out for me on the technical side. Thankfully, since my friend and I are so closely matched, I'll probably have a lot of opportunity to practice the suggestions you've made.

Lucario's D-Air seems to be a very risky choice in general against Samus; do you have any other suggestions for returning to the stage when being juggled from above the platform?

Try to have Aura Sphere charged as much as you can. That way you can punish or threaten to punish whiffed air attacks. Also, you'll be able to out prioritize her missiles at higher percents. Don't forget you can not only cancel her missile, but possibly hit her with a mid-high percent Force Palm.

I noticed this early on when playing against him, and it's been saving me quite a bit. He's starting to wise up, though.

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

Lucario's D-Air seems to be a very risky choice in general against Samus; do you have any other suggestions for returning to the stage when being juggled from above the platform?

NAir has low landing lag. Sometimes I will even just air dodge if being harassed in the air.

Another option is Double Team if the opponent is jumping up to attack, otherwise they will likely miss activating Double Team. It needs a lot of practice to master.

Another thing you should practice that a lot of Lucarios aren't are pivots.

• Pivot Smashes
• Pivot Force Palm
• Pivot Grab
• Pivot FTilt

These are amazing spacing options that we can use to mindgame with.

 

[Tyril132]

Noted. I watched through the videos you mentioned earlier, and I think those will be helpful reference points. Pivots are something I've been actively working on, but I have trouble pulling them off consistently (I'm really hoping they'll be a bit easier when Smash Wii U comes out).

Thanks again for the feedback. It looks like I've got a lot to work on, but it's helpful to have a sense of direction.

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/c1no8lainkxo2z9/Smash 4 Lucario chart.xlsx?dl=

In Smash 4 there is a 9% priority rule. If something does 9% more it will outprioritize the other move.

With that in mind a Lucario at:

• 32% with a fresh fully charged Aura Sphere will beat your regular Missile (5%).
• 88% with a fresh fully charged Aura Sphere will beat your Super Missile (10%).
• 8% with a fresh fully charged Aura Sphere beats your uncharged Charge Shot (3%).
• We will never beat a fully charge Charge Shot unless you horribly stale it :x

We've lost a lot of Air options from the transition from Brawl and gained grab combos and Aura is even more insane. Once we get strong enough to camp it is going to be difficult to approach us.

Misc. stuffs.

• Lucario's Force Palm is really good at punishing anything laggy such as landings and your roll and it grows in size when we take damage. Since Samus is floaty we can punish landing with our FSmash, FTilt, DTilt, Aura Sphere, etc. fairly well. Force Palm can also be used to cancel projectiles and hit you at the same time if spaced right.
  
• At the center of an Omega stage in training mode a Lucario's FSmash kills when both characters are at 89% with no DI. Both hits of USmash at 92%. DSmash and BAir at 104%. Fully Charged Aura Sphere at 129%. Sweetspot UTilt at 147%. Start of UAir at 110%. Double Team at 100%.
  
• The biggest thing we Lucarios probably have to worry about is that 26% damage fully charged Charge Shot of yours. Otherwise... it'll be really hard to approach us on the ground. You can harass us below us if you space UAir properly and to a lesser extent your Screw Attack, but that's pretty darn risky.
• If the Lucario knows what they are doing watch out for pivots. For some reason Lucario's horizontal grab distance is like 2-3 times greater than his regular grab range (lol Sakurai).
  
• As mentioned before Lucario's UTilt at low % leads to a number of combos depending on if it is sweetspotted or not.
• So in short keep us off the ground and don't let us harass you with Aura Sphere. Don't be grabbing the ledge twice because at higher percents Aura Sphere WILL hit you.
• We need to do more research, but our Aura Sphere charge can lead to a number of shinanegans. Good Lucarios will master reversing their Aura Sphere in the air, so watch out for that.
  
• We're short, so hitting and spacing against us with ZAir will be tricky.

I personally feel this matchup is in Lucario's favor, but I need to do more research.

Cross-posting from Samus board because I think it may have a good amount of info on this matchup too.

 

[Tyril132]

I noticed the 'priority rule' in action with my sparring partner, but we've just been kind of figuring out intuitively from trial and error. Having the hard numbers will hopefully allow both of us to make smarter decisions.

Your advice on pivots was also really helpful and I've been actively trying to incorporate them into my game.